Chapter 20 November 1995 Lily Jacobsen—Program Manager
Lily Jacobsen—program manager
The whole library swirled with gala preparations. At the conference room table, staff, trustees, and volunteers gathered to discuss the guest list, menu, publicity, and items for the silent auction. The only person absent was Hayes.
Jennifer de Narp donated priceless bottles of wine and a weekend at her chateau.
Pam and Bill de Laney proposed a week on their yacht, Lucky Lady.
Marius offered several first editions. Lorenzo, David, and Tolstoy volunteered to “help out” as waitstaff.
Tolstoy whispered to me that for the right price, he’d headbutt someone.
With a grin, I elbowed him gently in the ribs.
He’d felt mortified about the altercation, so I was relieved he could finally joke about it.
I waited for Meg to offer an item, or at least a suggestion, but she remained silent.
I wanted to contribute something typically Parisian that no one had yet suggested.
When I didn’t speak, Jennifer de Narp told me, “Contact the authors we’ve hosted.
Surely they’ll donate signed copies. Maybe one would be willing to offer a free manuscript critique to a budding writer. ”
“I brought something to donate,” I whispered to her. “Could I ask you to evaluate it first?”
“After the meeting, but let’s make it quick.”
Table decorations were next on the agenda. Felicity explained that bouquets were costly and would wilt, so she proposed stacking antique books from the Afterlife to create elegant centerpieces.
“With sprigs of mistletoe, your centerpieces will be charming,” Jennifer de Narp said.
Seeing everyone band together, I was cautiously hopeful that we could save the library.
Still, I wondered why Hayes missed such an important meeting.
But then, as Pam de Laney rose to leave, her gaze met Jennifer de Narp’s, and she nodded toward his office.
Their dislike of him permeated the air like a rancid perfume.
I suspected they gave him the wrong time.
If they had their way, his days at the library were numbered.
Felicity and Jennifer had created an enticing invitation packet, underlining the ALP’s history.
Highlights included photos that Wendy had discovered in the archives; a World War II–era report marked “Confidential,” in which the directress, Dorothy Reeder, chronicled life under the Nazis; as well as a letter on the importance of supporting the ALP.
At my desk, Meg, Lorenzo, and I stuffed five hundred manila envelopes.
My tongue felt like it had a hundred paper cuts.
I fingered the satin finish of the invitations. “How will people resist?”
Lorenzo pointed to the cost per ticket, in italics at the bottom. “The five-hundred-dollar price tag, that’s how.”
“Charging that much is a risk,” I admitted.
“Life is a gamble,” Meg said. “Life is a crapshoot. Life is just crap.”
Lorenzo tucked his arm around her shoulders. “Such talk isn’t like you. What’s wrong?”
Her gaze met mine. I knew that it stung that we hadn’t heard back from Odile.
I’d wanted to offer some reassurance, but it had been two months since we’d sent the letter.
I told myself to be patient. International mail service could be slow.
Sometimes it took a whole month to get a letter from home.
We’d hoped Odile would phone, but so far, there was no message on my machine.
I told myself I should have called, at least then we’d have had an immediate answer.
Now, I was afraid to reach out. While I was in high school, Odile had taught me the hardest lesson I ever learned: Silence is also a response.
But after everything she and I had been through, how could she not reach out?
Maybe I expected too much, maybe I was too demanding.
I felt the old anger rise in me, the resentment, the frustration.
Feelings I thought I’d mastered, or at least been able to batten down, having become an adept on this ship of emotions.
Then I heard Odile’s voice in my head: Put yourself in my skin, the French metaphor for putting yourself in someone else’s shoes.
I want to see Margaret more than anything, but I’m so ashamed of how I treated her that I’m afraid to face her. Was this why Odile hadn’t replied?
I wasn’t a kid. I had to stop lashing out and believing that my feelings counted more than those of others. This was exactly why Mary Louise had stopped talking to me. Odile had her reasons, and I had to respect them. Though it hurt, I’d told Meg what I’d realized: Odile would not come.
“I’m just tired.” Meg patted Lorenzo’s hand. “Or tired of volunteering. After the gala, it might be time for me to retire.”
Lorenzo blanched. “The library won’t be the same without you.”
“Let’s not dwell on that now,” she said, trying to sound chipper.
He told her that she was his lifeline, that without her reassurance, he never would have survived his divorce; that so many days, when he was fed up with the public, one knowing look from her was enough to sustain him. “Without you…”
Where did that sentence, that sentiment end? Would he move on, too? And if they left, where did that leave me?
I recalled my first day of work at the ALP.
Lorenzo’s disdainful regard, which insinuated I wouldn’t be able to hack the job.
I didn’t want to be one of those girls who didn’t last a year.
But writing Odile’s war bride journey had helped me understand that I wanted a career as a novelist. She’d chosen a new life, and I couldn’t blame her, not when I’d done the same in leaving behind my family and small town.
Mary Louise had also moved on—from me. For now or forever, who was to say?
Should I accept that the Mary Louise–and–Lily era was over?
And what was I to do with her paintings?
Once again, I needed advice—and I knew just who to ask.
After a quiet evening event, Lorenzo, Meg, and I lolled at the kitchen table and finished off the last of the Brie, baguette, and wine. For courage, I took a gulp of red.
“I stole something,” I admitted.
“You?” Lorenzo asked, sounding impressed.
I explained the situation. “If Mary Louise comes to my place and sees them… well, it’ll end our friendship.”
“Are you sure she’d be mad?” Meg asked.
“Yes. She said the only reason she’s still talking to me was because I’d respected her decision.”
“I have an idea.” Meg left the kitchen.
Lorenzo and I followed her to the oversize book section, where she reached behind a row and grabbed what appeared to be an X-ray. She slid it between the door and the frame of Hayes’s office. With a click, we were inside. Lorenzo and I exchanged glances. Who knew that Meg was a cat burglar?
“Don’t act surprised,” she said. “Hayes was always locking himself out. The locksmith got tired of trotting over here and showed me his trick.” Meg continued to the gargantuan gray safe and inserted a skeleton key.
“The day of my job interview, you said no one had the key,” I said.
“I’m sure I said staff didn’t.” Meg opened the safe.
Lorenzo and I peered inside as if we were players in a literary lottery with a possible winning ticket.
What would we glimpse? A lost poem by Gertrude Stein?
First editions by F. Scott Fitzgerald? Correspondence between Hemingway and one of his wives?
Would we finally get to read Irène Cohen’s long-lost novel?
The cavernous safe was nearly empty. There was a thick file that could have been deeds or banking documents or a yellowing manuscript. The top page read, For my dear friend Odile. I went to touch it.
Meg gently moved my hand away. “Before she died, Irène informed me that she had bequeathed the manuscript to Odile. That no one could read it before she did.”
I raised my brows. “You weren’t tempted?”
“Not without Odile. It didn’t seem right.”
Beside the file was a wooden jewelry box.
Meg set it on Hayes’s desk and opened it.
Inside were three enamel brooches. They were iridescent; the light seemed to come from inside them.
How? Such beauty, such magic. Peering closer, I spied a trio of miniature book covers.
Jane Eyre. Their Eyes Were Watching God. The Priory.
“Those are Odile’s favorite novels,” I said.
“I know. I created them for her.” Usually Meg’s posture was Queen Elizabeth straight, but now, her shoulders slumped. “I miss her.” She snapped the jewelry box shut and returned it to the safe. “It was silly of me to get my hopes up.”
A snippet from Wendy’s novel came to mind. “Jessie Carson once said: ‘Sometimes our hopes are all we have.’ ”
“Bring the paintings here, where they’ll be safe. Art deserves protecting,” Meg said briskly. Though she had changed the subject, her wounded expression remained.
“Best to do it now,” Lorenzo advised, “while no one else is around.”
They offered to help, but I insisted that I could carry the canvases myself. I sped down the boulevard, across the bridge, along the pedestrian street to my building, and up the narrow servants’ staircase to my empty studio. I stood there for a good long while, not ready to say goodbye.
My dear Lily, I imagined Odile saying as she selected a book from my shelf and opened to the first page. What do you see here? Space between the words. Space is beautiful. Essential. It’s needed to make sense of sentences. And relationships.
As always, her wisdom comforted me. I gathered Mary Louise’s paintings into my arms.
Back in the director’s office, Lorenzo laid the canvases gently in the safe. I closed the door, heartened by the idea that one day the right person would find them. I decided to reach out one last time, and then leave the next steps to my friend.
Dear Mary Louise,
You’re the best friend I have ever had. Thank you for all that you’ve done for me, from coming to Paris and learning a foreign language to encouraging me to apply for the program manager position. Just being with you makes me feel brave and strong.
I apologize for putting myself first, for not giving you credit or time to express your feelings.
For always thinking I knew best. Unfortunately, I have even more to apologize for.
I stole your paintings from the curb and put them somewhere safe.
I betrayed your trust and your wishes. I don’t want to lie anymore, even by omission, and I understand if you can’t forgive me.
I asked the trustee you met briefly, who is so honest as to be cruel, to appraise the Eiffel Tower tableau you gave me.
She loved it, and asked to include it in the library gala’s silent auction.
As much as I want to keep it for myself, I want to contribute.
You see, everyone here puts their heart and soul into the library, and your painting, well, it’s my soul.
I include two tickets to the event and hope to see you and Antoine. I also understand if you’ve moved on. Thank you for being such a good friend to me. I will always be grateful for the time we shared.
Yours,
Lily
I sent the letter, and waited. Patience had become one of my fortes.